1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium processing device which performs readout or writing of data with respect to a magnetic card or recording medium, and more particularly, relates to a recording medium processing device having a conveying mechanism which uses a vibration actuator as a drive source of the recording medium, and to a card type pachinko machine which uses a recording medium processing device of this kind.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a known type of recording medium processing device, for a magnetic card or other sheet form recording medium, a conveying mechanism is included to convey the recording medium to a recording position, readout position or other predetermined position for the purpose of recording data onto or reading data from the recording medium.
The conveying mechanism, generally, uses a direct current motor or other type of electromagnetic motor as a drive source. The driving force of the electromagnetic motor, which is applied to a speed reduction mechanism, conveys the recording medium at a predetermined conveying speed.
In recent years, prepaid cards have been used as a recording medium for automatic sales machines, automatic ticket reading machines or pachinko machines, and recording medium devices to process this recording medium have been introduced into these automatic sales machines, automatic ticket reading machines, or card type pachinko machines.
For example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-236756, a card type pachinko machine is disclosed which is equipped with a recording medium processing device with magnetic cards as the subject.
However, in each of the conventional automatic sales machines, automatic ticket reading machines, and card type pachinko machine, etc., because various mechanisms other than the recording medium processing device are located in the interior thereof, to avoid an increase in the size of the whole device, it is necessary to make each device located in the interior smaller. For this purpose, it is also necessary to make the recording medium processing device smaller.
Because the conventional recording medium processing devices use an electromagnetic motor as the drive source of the conveying mechanism, such that the electromagnetic motor obtains its driving force by using a magnetic action, there is a risk that surrounding devices or interior devices are affected by a magnetic field of the motor. The conventional recording medium processing device usually has an internal signal processing circuit to write or read out data of the recording medium. Anomalies arise in the signal processing circuit due to the effect of the magnetic field, and erroneous operation occurs.
In the case that the recording medium is a magnetic card, writing and readout operations which are performed magnetically, are easily affected by the electromagnetic motor. As a result, so that effects are not received from the magnetic field, it is necessary to dispose magnetic shielding or similar means between the electromagnetic motor (drive source) of the conveying mechanism and an information processing mechanism which performs the reading and writing operations, and for this reason there is a problem that the internal constitution of the recording medium processing device becomes complicated.